


the sky's the look of forever

by vype



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst and Humor, Developing Relationship, Drabbles, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Multi, Non-Chronological, The Future Past DLC
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-03-06 23:26:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3152225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vype/pseuds/vype
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A relationship, from beginning to denouement. Not Greek, but a tragedy nonetheless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. first impressions

\---

The barracks are nice. Homely. Libra could get used to living here. He’s not unused to living in close proximity to others, especially brothers he’s fought with, but there’s something warm and simple about soldiers’ barracks. Something hasty and cobbled together, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Of course, there’s always time to address the manakete in the room.

 He turns to the dark mage. She turns to look at him, flicking her tome shut.

“You tried to kill me,” he says.

She smiles thinly. “Well it’s not like you didn’t give reciprocating your best attempt. Don’t talk about killing with me as if your actions are totally pure, priest.”

That’s fair enough, really; she isn’t wrong. And they’re on the same side now, so there’s no point in wallowing over it. If Lord Chrom would give her his trust, then Libra shall do the same. He extends his hand.

“I am Libra.”

She glances at the offered appendage like it’s something distasteful, but she shakes it anyway. “Tharja.” 

And that’s it. They go their separate ways. 

In their next skirmish she blasts away an archer that was taking aim at him. He heals her a bit when he sees her beginning to wheeze after a hard swing to the abdomen. 

Reciprocation.

\---

Henry is absolutely nothing at all like Tharja expects him to be. If she weren’t so proud of her track record of staying alive, she would just dismiss him as just another bumbling, smiling fool. But there’s a reason why a man has rumors about him, and she can’t ignore that, and so she doesn’t.

She keeps a close, close eye on Henry both in battle and out in the days shortly after he somehow convinces the exalt to take him on. In her observations, she finds this:

1\. Henry is indeed a bumbling, smiling fool.  
2\. This does not make him any less dangerous.

In fact, he is quite possibly the most dangerous person in the Shepherds- after Robin, of course. There’s that palpable darkness buried somewhere deep within the tactician that’s almost deliriously addictive, something grand and important and mysterious, but Henry exudes a different kind of dark from every pore; at times it seems as if it is a thirst for others’ blood that keeps his heart beating. He doesn’t hide it- he revels in it even though, or perhaps simply because, it makes some others uncomfortable.

Well. Tharja isn’t discomfited by him. Nor is she afraid. And as Henry is a wild card that cannot be left unchecked, she is going to be the one to do it.

She flips through her tome’s well-worn pages. A curse that makes people think they’re being struck by lightning: promising, but perhaps not for this purpose. Another curse that might cause eyeballs to burst into blood: good for dealing with pesky archers, and in fact, one such teal-haired archer does indeed come to mind. Looking through this is giving her all sorts of interesting ideas. Perhaps she could try some of them out later on.

Hmm. A hex to make people unable to tell a lie. Tharja’s fairly sure she can find some use for it…

\---

“I’ll admit that I originally had rather shallow reasons for joining the order,” Libra muses. Henry tilts his head to the side. “It was nice, to be called brother. To have someone to call father. Even thought I knew it wasn’t really like a family, just being able to hear and speak those words was good. It helped, a lot.”

“Mmm, I guess I wouldn’t know about that!” Henry says. He chuckles. “Family’s a weird thing. My parents didn’t like me either, but I never really got bothered by it! They sent me away to school and I never saw them again, so it’s not like they can do anything about it.”

Libra is quiet for a short while. “I would very much like to know how you’ve managed to…bounce back, if that’s the term.”

Huh. Henry doesn’t really remember the last time anyone wanted to know how he’s managed something! Aside from maybe the short time he was with the Plegian army, about how to dismember people and such. And of course Henry showed them. He loves to teach, after all! But after a while people generally got tired of that- or even scared! Imagine that. But yeah, after that people didn’t really like asking Henry for demonstrations anymore.

He shrugs. “Well, I don’t know, really. I just found a family of my own!” A bit thoughtful, he tilts his head to one side. “I guess it’s similar to what you’ve done. If you want to think of it that way. If you’ve got your own family that matters then why should you bother with people who don’t like you, is what I’m saying. Forget them!”

Libra hums. “That’s very pragmatic of you,” he says, and doesn’t say more on the topic.

Henry isn’t very good at reading expressions, but even if he was Libra looks pretty blank. But not in the ‘I don’t have a face at all’ blank, just expressionless. Oooh, but what if Libra really didn’t have a face? Or if it was ripped off? Would that be gory or what!

“Well, thank you for sharing,” Libra says, cutting his imagination short. He stands up. “I think I’ll be going for some training. Farewell, Henry.”

“See ya!”


	2. smile (part 1)

A favor for a favor is what they agreed on, and yet Libra finds Henry’s request… odd.

“To teach you how to smile,” he says slowly. Henry nods. “You seem to be doing well enough for yourself on that front.”

“No, I mean really smile.” Henry’s grin is as omnipresent as ever, but Libra thinks he understands what the other man means. Still, any elaboration Henry does from here on out can be nothing but enlightening, so he allows the other man to proceed.

“I can’t smile like other people. Cherche and Olivia were bugging me about it and you know, I thought they were wrong and I kept telling them that! See, even you agreed- I smile just fine! But I got to thinking about it, and then I was looking at other people smiling and you know the way Tharja smiles when she sees Robin?” Oh yes, Libra is very well aware. “Now that’s a smile!”

Henry pauses, takes a deep breath. There are uncharacteristic nervous habits bleeding through his cheerful facade- fingers drumming on the edges of his old battered tome. “So could you teach me how to smile like that?”

And Henry looks so eager about it too- Libra normally only sees this level of enthusiasm while they’re preparing for a big battle, or if Henry’s daydreaming about… something, likely guts and blood or something along those lines. So of course there’s only one thing to say to that:

“Of course, Henry.”

He’s probably not the best teacher for something like this. Libra honestly has to stop to recall the last time he smiled properly- wholly and truly, without any hidden darkness or bitterness to cover up. Even in the orphanage, there was always something lurking at the back of his mind, something that curdled like envy and made him very, very ashamed.

But of course, Henry is ecstatic. “Yay! Thanks, Libra. I’ve got stuff to do for now, things to curse and all that, but you promised! Remember that, or I’ll have to curse you.”


	3. smile (part 2)

Apparently Libra and Henry are both making fools of themselves while also making everyone else, especially Chrom, highly unnerved. Tharja is almost impressed. She certainly doesn’t think she’d be capable of both actions simultaneously. 

But what’s really perplexing is that everyone seems to think that it has something to do with her, or that she can do something about it. It starts with Frederick approaching her and asking for her to somehow get the two of them under control, as they’re scaring the new recruits and it’s bad for morale. She gives him a hand wave and a shrug, and thinks that’s the end of it.

Up until both Sully and Virion come begging her to do something to make them stop. And then it’s Lissa, and then even the elusive Panne, and then Chrom himself comes practically dragging his knees on the ground while pleading with her to do something about the odd duo. Robin makes a few comments about Henry and Libra’s suddenly unsettling behavior, and at last Tharja agrees to look into it.

“Just what are those two fools doing?” she ponders as she wanders to Henry’s tent. Standing outside their door she can’t hear any voices, but Stahl had just confirmed that he saw them head in. 

Well, she’ll never find out if she doesn’t enter. So she lifts the flap.

And comes face to face with the most horrific expression she has seen on Henry’s face to date.

She doesn’t recoil but it’s a near thing.

“What are you doing?” she snaps, clutching her tome close to her chest. She’s half tempted to cast a hex at the abomination in front of her because there is no way that it’s actually Henry. This must be a curse of some sort, an illusion.

“I’m smiling!” Henry exclaims. His teeth almost seem as if they should be sharp. “Libra’s giving me lessons.”

Tharja looks to the priest. There is something that almost approaches a smile- upturned corners of lips. But it somehow is more of a grimace, and the way it is forced raises hairs on the back of Tharja’s neck.

“Well you’re both doing a terrible job of it,” she says. Henry’s smile wavers. Libra’s disappears altogether, and his expression is back to its normal blank countenance. “That’s a smile? You looked like you’ve both been cursed.”

Henry pouts. “Aww, Tharja, why do you have to be so mean? We’re just trying to look like you, you know!”

…What?


	4. white lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's been forever and a half since I updated. I lost my file for this story and that put a damper on motivation to rewrite it, but here's something, at least. I was going to write the actual death scene before this but that's gone too. So here's angst. Whoo.

See, the thing is. 

The thing is.

…

The thing is that Henry doesn’t really get it.

They have Libra back. This is a statement that is both true and false.

True, because Libra is walking around their little house and alternating days with Henry to cook dinner, and he plays with little toddler Noire whenever she demands it.

False, because this is what Henry doesn’t understand: a body is a container. 

More to the point: a likeness can be replicated. But ultimately, love cannot.

And it is hard to keep believing that it is Libra, because it isn’t. Not in the ways that matter. It actually hurts to see Henry bouncing about like nothing’s wrong- and Tharja can’t even begin to describe what happens to her emotions when she sees Noire giggling in a blank-faced Libra’s arms.

She hates being sentimental like this. She hates the thing- the entity parading in Libra’s body, pretending to be him.

But most of all, she hates that she wants this too.

They have Libra back. Even though it is half a lie, it is half the truth, too.


	5. tactician, exalt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, i'm back and i'm terrible at updating. yay for future past sadness

Nobody has seen Robin in weeks.

Three things happen that may or may not be coincidences. 

Firstly, Chrom has been dead for weeks. 

Secondly, Validar and the rest of the Grimleal parade around a new successor, who wears a heavy hood and veil whenever he appears in public, which is to say, very rarely. The nation has been celebrating an impending coronation for nearly two weeks now. 

And finally, Plegia’s strategies have suddenly grown much more concentrated and cunning these past few skirmishes.

There’s a conclusion hidden in this. Nobody likes it.

Tharja always knew there was darkness in Robin for a reason. She finds that she misses him distantly, her emotions filtered like moonlight through rippled glass. It doesn’t sting as much as she thought it would.

Whether that’s a good thing or not, Tharja honestly doesn’t know. But she’s too tired to think on it more, so when Noire starts acting up again, she pushes it out of her mind. She has her duty. Perhaps she had one to Robin, in the past, but Robin is no longer here.

 

* * *

 

Lissa has given Tharja an excellent reference. It’s a belt buckle, one of Chrom’s from his ridiculous uniform. The edge of it is chipped, but the brand of the exalt is still white and gleaming in the center.

In slightly unrelated news, the room is full of the stench of burning flesh.

Lissa does not cry. She did not cry at the funeral. She will not cry now.

After it is done, Tharja sets down the Elfire tome. She cleans up, packing away her things and giving Lissa a damp cloth and at least some illusion of privacy to examine the mark branded onto the palm of her left hand.

When she is done, Lissa stands. “Thank you, Tharja,” she says.

“At your service, Lady Exalt.” Tharja forms an approximation of a smile. Lissa attempts to return it.

“Say hello to Noire for me,” Lissa says as she leaves. “And try to visit more. Owain keeps wailing for a playdate and Cordelia tells me that Severa’s being hard to deal with when all her friends are away.”

Tharja says, “We’ll see.”


	6. parenthood

Over time, Noire’s hair fades into pale blonde, which marks Libra as her biological father. None of them let it bother them- Henry’s a father too, no matter what other people would think.

She cries at all hours of the night and Libra finds himself more often than not staying up until dawn begins to break just to be able to address whatever Noire needs. Parenthood is exhausting- for Tharja even more so, with the addition of having to nurse Noire.

Sumia had been absolutely ecstatic, of course. Olivia is still about a month away from delivery, and Miriel and Cordelia have both only recently announced their pregnancies, so Noire is the only other baby for now. Lucina’s almost two and still as finicky as a newborn, but the pegasus knight is eager to share any and all parenting advice with Tharja. 

“Be careful with the bath temperature,” Sumia says. “Babies have very sensitive skin.”

“Noted,” Tharja says. Noire clings to her shirt and she gently strokes the head of fluffy hair.

“You have to change her often,” Sumia adds, bouncing Lucina on her lap. “Check frequently so she won’t get a rash.”

Tharja hums blandly. “I’m sure I could find a curse for that,” she says. Sumia doesn’t appear to hear her, which is probably for the best.

“And don’t forget to entertain her! Babies like colorful things.”

Tharja sighs, glancing down to Noire. Noire gurgles and a little line of drool dribbles from the corner of her mouth. Tharja dabs at it. They may be here a while yet.

Chrom is not quite as helpful.

“So. Um, she might try to bite even if she doesn’t have any teeth. Don’t leave weapons around her.” Chrom rubs the back of his head, sheepish and embarrassed. “Especially not unbreakable legendary heirlooms.”

“We don’t have any of those,” Henry says cheerfully. “I think we’ll be fine!”

“Oh. Good.” Chrom turns his head back to look at the door, where Sumia and Tharja sit in the room beyond. “I guess, aside from that, there’s not much? Play a lot with her. And smile. A lot. Babies like it when you smile.”

“Sure!” Not a problem with Henry around.

“Okay. Don’t try to throw her up in the air. That’s not how you play with babies.” Suddenly remembering who exactly he’s talking to, he rushes to add, “And spells are not acceptable baby play materials. Just so you know.”

“Of course,” Henry says, his tone suggesting mild indignation. What does Chrom take him for, a fool? “That’s what hexes are for!”

Chrom stares.

“He’s joking,” Libra says for the lord’s sake. He thinks that Henry’s joking. 

He really hopes that Henry’s joking.


End file.
